


Secrets

by Sub_Rosa



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Gen, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:56:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6411586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sub_Rosa/pseuds/Sub_Rosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaune Arc keeps secrets - even from himself. It’s just too painful to bear, otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

The first time Jaune realized something was wrong with him was when he was maybe seven or so years old, and his oldest sister - Bianca - was preparing to get married.

 

He was just sitting in the corner, playing games with his Scroll while Azure, Olivia, and Indigo - the littlest sisters among their number - all argued over who would have the lovely privilege of being the flower girl for the wedding.

 

“Come on, Bianca! I should be the flower girl!” Olivia whined. “How many times have I bailed you out with Mom and Dad? You know I deserve something in return!”

 

Bianca snorted, furrowing her brow. “You’re not making me feel very indebted to you, with all your whining.”

 

Azure took that as her opportunity to push Olivia away, shoving her down with a palm to the face. “So how about me, then? I’m humble and sweet!”

 

“Right.” Bianca drawled out.

 

“So how about it?” Azure continued with a beaming grin.

 

Bianca just shook her head.

 

“No. It wouldn’t be fair to any of you if only one of you got to be the flower girl. So it’s not going to be one of you.”

 

Indigo raised an eyebrow.

 

“So it’s going to be all of us?”

 

“Nope.” Bianca declared, popping the ‘p’. “It’s going to be… Jaune.”

 

He wasn’t even paying attention to their proceedings, but he looked up as soon as I heard his name, only to see every sister he had staring at him.

 

“What?” He asked curiously. “Is there something on my face?”

 

Azure, Olivia, and Indigo all grinned ferociously.

 

“I could see it.” Sienna murmured. Bianca began rattling out orders.

 

“Jaune, come here for a minute, will you? Violet, could you go and get some of our own clothes?”

 

“What’s this about?” He asked warily.

 

Bianca smiled.

 

* * *

 

In the end, it was sort of fun. He  _ liked _ being the flower girl, and wasn’t that fucked up?

 

He never actually got past the practice wedding though, because when his Dad found out, he ended up flipping his lid.

 

“Jaune, are you okay?” He asked slowly, kneeling down to look Jaune in the eyes. he felt intensely scrutinized, like a pinned-down butterfly.

 

“Well, yeah.” He eventually said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

 

His father blinked in surprise. “Uhh… because they’re making you go out and embarrass yourself in that getup?”

 

Jaune hadn’t been embarrassed about it until that moment, when his dad implied there was something  _ wrong _ with what he was doing.

 

Like he wasn’t supposed to be wearing girl’s clothes.

 

And that was when he started to understand.

 

You see, he didn’t get ‘the talk’ until much later in life. He didn’t quite understand the difference between boys and girls for a long time, and he assumed it was just cosmetic. He thought that if you wore boy clothes that made you a boy, and if you wore girl clothes that made you a girl.

 

Really childish, in retrospect. But he quickly realized that he’d had it backwards, somehow.

 

If you were a boy, you were supposed to wear boy clothes, and if you were a girl, you were supposed to wear girl clothes. Not quite like he’d thought earlier. And he was breaking the rules that Dad was implying with his words.

 

“I guess it is kind of silly.” Jaune eventually said, his face feeling redder than a tomato. And when he eventually took off the dress and let Indigo become the flower girl, he couldn’t help but feel heartsick.

 

It just didn’t seem fair, that he was still a boy even if he wore a dress. That he couldn’t become a girl as easily as putting on clothes.

 

But that was just the state of things, wasn’t it? No point in crying over things you couldn’t change.

 

* * *

 

Years went by in the flicker of an eye, almost on autopilot. There didn’t seem to be much of a point to a lot of things - but there was one thing Jaune  _ did _ want to do.

 

He wanted to become a Hunter.

 

He couldn’t think of anything real that he wanted for himself. But he wanted to honor his family and he wanted to help people, didn’t he?

 

So… He faked his way into Beacon. Got some help from his sisters on that one. It seemed they wanted to get him away from his parents, but he wasn’t too sure why.

 

He faked his way through a lot of things. ‘Fake it until you make it’ might as well have been his motto. He faked his way into becoming the leader of his team, and he faked his way into friendship and love.

 

He let himself forget about how little he cared about himself until one warm day with Pyrrha.

 

* * *

 

_ Things change. _ He reflected, as he sat next to his… was she his girlfriend?

 

Wasn’t that a weird thought, that anyone could care about him like that?

 

“Jaune?” Pyrrha asked slowly, leaning against him and allowing her head to fall into the crook of his neck. “I… can I talk to you about something?”

 

“Anything.” He replied, savoring the feel of her soft skin. Unfortunately for him, she pulled away, setting herself away from him as if she had to distance herself to speak.

 

_ God _ , he thought,  _ she is so beautiful.  _ He admired her form to the point that he almost envied her.

 

“You can talk to me about anything, Pyrrha.”

 

The words fell out of his mouth easily, and he supposed it was true, wasn’t it?

 

She gave a hesitant little smile at his cheesy words.

 

“Well… if we’re  _ really _ going to be dating now, then… I… we’re friends, and now maybe more, so there’s something we should really talk about.”

 

She was almost babbling as she spoke. He frowned.

 

“Calm down, Pyrrha. It can’t be that bad, can it?”

 

She flinched slightly.

 

“Well… Jaune… what do you think about people who are… ah, different?”

 

He gave her a look.

 

“Uh, is that your way of telling me that you’re secretly a Faunus or something?”

 

She actually laughed, letting loose a long chuckle.

 

“Uh, not that there’s anything wrong with being a Faunus, if that’s what you are!” He stammered out. She held up a hand to forestall his words.

 

“No, I’m certainly not a Faunus.” She said, before her smile stiffened. “This is… call it hypothetical. What do you think about… other kinds of people who are different?”

 

He took a moment, mentally running through all the kinds of differences he could think of, and coming up with nothing at all.

 

“I don’t really know what you’re saying, Pyrrha.”

 

Her face grew unspeakably embarrassed.

 

“Well… what do you think of transgender people?”

 

“I don’t even know what that word means, Pyrrha.”

 

Although he couldn’t help but feel confused. Trans _ gender _ ? What did gender have to do with anything?

 

“Oh, well… for example… what would you think about someone who had a boy’s body, but was actually a girl, and chose to change their body to match who they really were?”

 

Jaune wasn’t completely stupid; he could tell that Pyrrha wasn’t talking in hypotheticals. But somehow that fell by the wayside with all of his other concerns.

 

“Wait… you can  _ do that _ !? Just… what, be a girl, even if you’re a boy?”

 

He was babbling too, but his attention was definitely piqued. She half-cringed, before looking at him in surprise.

 

In all honesty, she’d been prepared to run away, not to have to do Trans 101 for a suddenly very eager Jaune Arc.

 

“Y… yes, you can definitely ‘do that’.” She stammered, looking at the wash of emotions which swept over Jaune’s face, and relaxing at the absence of vitriol in his visage.

 

“That’s amazing! Are you like that?” Jaune said, a strange sort of light and life in his eyes. “How did you know you were a girl?”

 

Pyrrha let herself come close to him again. “I just… always knew. I always felt like a girl, deep down… so, with help from my parents, I am one.”

 

“I… oh.”

 

Something seemed to die in Jaune’s eyes.

 

“Well… that’s really cool, Pyrrha. It doesn’t change how much I care about you.”

 

It just changed how he felt about himself.

 

For a second, he’d felt something like a ray of hope in a world he didn’t even realize he hated. But how could he be a girl if he didn’t feel like one?

 

He just  _ wanted _ to be a girl, in a hidden and buried part of himself. And if he was already a girl, if he was already transgender, he wouldn’t feel like he was still a boy, would he?

 

His feeling weren’t enough to make him like her, were they?

 

Pyrrha didn’t miss the look of longing on his face, though, and she filed it away as something to think about for later - maybe after they were done cuddling and talking about  _ her _ .

 

They ended up conversing for long hours, stretching into the night-time. Nora and Ren were gone - apparently at Pyrrha’s request - and so there weren’t any interruptions.

 

“You know, you’re pretty intrigued by this whole process, aren’t you?” Pyrrha asked lightly. “Are the pills I take really that interesting to you?”

 

Jaune flushed bright red and clammed up, not asking any more questions for several days.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t end up confronting him for a while, not until she found him packing up his dress - the one he’d worn to the dance, so long ago - into a box and scrawling an address on the side.

 

“What are you doing with that, Jaune?”

 

He shrugged. “I borrowed it off of one of my sisters. I certainly don’t plan to use it again, so I’m sending it back.”

 

She smiled and shook her head.

 

“That’s a shame. You looked good in that thing.”

 

“No I didn’t.”

 

His voice was suddenly cutting and sharp, like useless broken glassware. “I looked  _ awful _ in that thing, didn’t I?”

 

She raised an eyebrow at his self-loathing declaration.

 

“Nah, I think you were pretty cute. You’d make a good girl, if you tried.”

 

He actually  _ smiled _ , hesitant and distant and careful.

 

“I… did I really? Would I?”

 

She smiled in return.

 

“Definitely.”


End file.
